Avoid­ing risk of poi­son­ing

One of the more com­mon emer­gen­cies that we see af­ter-hours is tox­i­c­i­ties.

Ev­ery year at this time we see dogs with wal­nut tox­i­c­ity. If dogs are in­gest­ing old wal­nuts off the ground, they have po­ten­tial to de­velop tremors and seizures from wal­nut hulls that are mouldy and con­tain the toxin pen­i­trem A. We cer­tainly rec­om­mend not let­ting your dog have ac­cess to wal­nuts at all.

An­other com­mon tox­i­c­ity is when dogs eat rat bait. Rat bait varies in strength greatly but all cause the dog to bleed. This usu­ally oc­curs two to three days af­ter the bait is in­gested. If your dog has eaten rat bait we usu­ally make them vomit im­me­di­ately if in­ges­tion is within two hours and then there is a blood test to check all is okay. If we can’t get it all out we then treat with vi­ta­min K for up to four weeks de­pend­ing on the rat bait eaten. Blood trans­fu­sions are some­times nec­es­sary.

Med­i­ca­tions in the house are also a source of tox­i­c­ity to pets. The com­mon pain re­lief med­i­ca­tion ibupro­fen is toxic to dogs. Small amounts may cause gas­troin­testi­nal up­sets but larger doses can cause acute kid­ney fail­ure and death. Med­i­ca­tions should be stored safely away from chil­dren and pets.